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EDF Health

In late August 2017, Hurricane Harvey’s torrential rains brought unprecedented flooding to Houston and large portions of the southeast coast of Texas. The storm destroyed homes and businesses, prompted numerous rescues, and left Texans to piece their lives back together. Harvey also led to substantial releases of toxic chemicals into communities.

The Houston area is home to hundreds of chemical plants and refineries. While highly visible incidents, like the explosions at the Arkema chemical plant, dominated news coverage, toxic chemical releases from plants occurred throughout the region.

In this episode of our podcast, we spoke with EDF’s own Dr. Elena Craft, who helped spearhead efforts to monitor these releases in real-time. Elena talks about her experiences on the ground, the inadequacies of many chemical plant risk management plans, and what it all means moving forward.

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Climate change poses clear threats to the environment and global ecosystems, but it also presents risks to human health. Evidence suggests that droughts, heat waves, and extreme weather events will become more severe as our planet continues to warm. These effects of climate change can directly harm people by exacerbating medical conditions such as respiratory illnesses and cardiovascular disease. They can also indirectly impact health as they cause food and water shortages that affect the most vulnerable among us. Our changing climate represents a challenge for public health throughout the world.

In this episode of our podcast, we spoke with Dr. Jay Lemery and Dr. Cecilia Sorensen, both physicians at the University of Colorado, about what climate change means for our health and patient care, and what the path to a healthy future looks like.